My uncle passed away a few months back and she was left with his boat an 1989 (i think) 186 wellcraft eclipse. It has a mercruiser V6 and alpha 1 outdrive, which i think Makes 155hp according to the title. it sits on a newer magic trail aluminum/galvanized trailer.
I had been out on this boat numerous times and enjoyed being on the water with him, so my aunt decided that she would give the boat to me since she had no use for it. The last time i was out on it (probably 2 years ago) i noticed the floor was rather soft and spongy feeling so i knew it needed some work, but i didn't know how bad it would be. My dad and i went and picked it up on february 14 and I immediately noticed the floor was in worse shape than i thought, I fell through it near the lip of the ski locker. we took it home and i started to clean it out and realized that a tube stored on the bow was holding lots of water on the deck and all the carpet was soaked. I then began to research what i might be getting into and thats when i came across Iboats. Looking over Friscoboater's blog/videos/thread i realized i was most likely in or a full deck-stringer restoration. The next day i began the teardown.
this is what i found, this didn't scare me too much but when the deck started coming apart without any tools i started to get worried. I got the deck removed without too much trouble haha and with a little help from the roto zip zipsaw, i considered the dremel multi max that everyone raves about but my dad said its for homeowners and were professional haha so i went with the rotozip and it worked wonders. With the deck pulled up I started poking around, and you guessed it, wrotten stringers.
From here i started the dreaded foam removal and it is as terrible as everyone says it is. It was gross, nasty, and time consuming but after a couple days the majority of it was out
fI then began the grinding/ itch process and instead of grinding the existing tabbing completely off i took a different rout and cleaned out the channels so that i would have a pre- made form for my new stringers. This made thing a lot easier.
After more research a came across the perpendicular scribe method (not sure of the technical name) for tracing out the stringers. This made things so much easier and i traced all my stringers out on card stock paper before i cut them.
As you can see in the picture i used a square and some harbor freight clamps to hang my paper on to trace them. Its not a foolproof method but it does work. I did this until all my stringers were traced out and then i transferred the templates onto my marine grade plywood. I cut out all my stringers and then placed them into the boat before i cut them to deck height. i used a string line running from the front of the boat to the back and from side to side to trace my heights. I finally finished cutting an fitting all the stringers today
This is the point where i am at now. Thursday i will begin to cut out the deck and order my fiberglass, resin, and foam from UScomposites. Ive decided to use the 2lb foam and epoxy resin. Once this is done i plan to finish sanding the deck so i have a good surface to glass to and i still need to grind the deck lip off, which is a great idea to leave in the boat until the stringers are done, thank you frisco for stating this in your videos! I know I'm a little late to the game posting pictures and starting a thread but I've been busy working on the boat, but any tips, pointers, and ideas anyone has are much appreciated. This is my first boat and my first restoration. After only a month i think I'm making good progress, and not to mention I'm only 17, I've had grown men tell me they would have just scrapped this thing. I still need to order carpet, seats ( I'm replacing the original lounge seats with captains chairs), stereo system, pin striping, ect.... so anyone knowing of good sources/ good prices for these items please let me know.
this is what i found, this didn't scare me too much but when the deck started coming apart without any tools i started to get worried. I got the deck removed without too much trouble haha and with a little help from the roto zip zipsaw, i considered the dremel multi max that everyone raves about but my dad said its for homeowners and were professional haha so i went with the rotozip and it worked wonders. With the deck pulled up I started poking around, and you guessed it, wrotten stringers.
From here i started the dreaded foam removal and it is as terrible as everyone says it is. It was gross, nasty, and time consuming but after a couple days the majority of it was out
fI then began the grinding/ itch process and instead of grinding the existing tabbing completely off i took a different rout and cleaned out the channels so that i would have a pre- made form for my new stringers. This made thing a lot easier.
After more research a came across the perpendicular scribe method (not sure of the technical name) for tracing out the stringers. This made things so much easier and i traced all my stringers out on card stock paper before i cut them.
As you can see in the picture i used a square and some harbor freight clamps to hang my paper on to trace them. Its not a foolproof method but it does work. I did this until all my stringers were traced out and then i transferred the templates onto my marine grade plywood. I cut out all my stringers and then placed them into the boat before i cut them to deck height. i used a string line running from the front of the boat to the back and from side to side to trace my heights. I finally finished cutting an fitting all the stringers today
This is the point where i am at now. Thursday i will begin to cut out the deck and order my fiberglass, resin, and foam from UScomposites. Ive decided to use the 2lb foam and epoxy resin. Once this is done i plan to finish sanding the deck so i have a good surface to glass to and i still need to grind the deck lip off, which is a great idea to leave in the boat until the stringers are done, thank you frisco for stating this in your videos! I know I'm a little late to the game posting pictures and starting a thread but I've been busy working on the boat, but any tips, pointers, and ideas anyone has are much appreciated. This is my first boat and my first restoration. After only a month i think I'm making good progress, and not to mention I'm only 17, I've had grown men tell me they would have just scrapped this thing. I still need to order carpet, seats ( I'm replacing the original lounge seats with captains chairs), stereo system, pin striping, ect.... so anyone knowing of good sources/ good prices for these items please let me know.
